Re: Proposing the retirement of default-mysql-* metapackages for Forky

Soren Stoutner <[email protected]> Tue, 26 May 2026 08:13:00 -0700
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.general
Organization	Debian
Message-ID	<48105375.fMDQidcC6G@soren-desktop>
On Tuesday, May 26, 2026 6:58:48 AM Mountain Standard Time Thomas Goirand 
wrote:
> On 5/16/26 6:10 AM, Otto Kekäläinen wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I want to start a discussion about dismantling the
> > default-mysql-server and default-mysql-client virtual packages for
> > Forky (Debian 14), and transitioning the archive to point explicitly
> > to mariadb-server and mariadb-client.
> > 
> > To be clear: this change is proposed strictly for Forky and won't
> > affect any older or currently supported stable releases.
> > 
> > With the recent releases of MySQL 9.7 and MariaDB 12.3, there is now
> > enough divergence between the two codebases to warrant dismantling
> > this metapackage. Their SQL dialects, authentication methods and other
> > features have drifted to the point where treating them as
> > interchangeable drop-in alternatives under a single virtual package is
> > becoming misleading. We have already seen this friction for example in
> > the Perl ecosystem had to split into libdbd-mysql-perl and
> > libdbd-mariadb-perl because the underlying drivers can no longer
> > support both engines.
> > 
> > It is also evident that the broader open source ecosystem has shifted
> > from MySQL to MariaDB in the past decade as newer MySQL versions are
> > not getting traction. For example, according to WordPress.org usage
> > statistics[1], MySQL 8.4 has only managed a 7% share two years after
> > its April 2024 release, while the more recent MariaDB 11.8 already has
> > a 13% share - nearly double the traction in half the time. Those stats
> > also show MariaDB's overall share is now over 60%. Also note that for
> > MySQL, the majority is still on versions 5.7 or 8.0, which both are
> > now EOL and their share is likely to drop soon.
> > 
> > Many prominent open source projects also recommend MariaDB over MySQL
> > (e.g. Nextcloud [2],Mediawiki [3]). Despite pledges from the
> > community, Oracle hasn't shown any signs of being a better open source
> > steward, the commit activity is decreasing [4], and no new commits
> > have been published for the main branch in the past 5 months.
> > 
> > If you look at the Debian Popcon graph for mysql-server versions [5],
> > it shows that users installing MySQL in derivatives or from
> > third-party repos are becoming increasingly rare. When comparing
> > directly MySQL vs MariaDB in popcon it is also very obvious that
> > interest for MySQL is vaining rapidly [6].
> > 
> > By announcing this abstraction as deprecated now, we give maintainers
> > plenty of time to update their Depends and Build-Depends to point
> > explicitly to MariaDB. The whole metapackage can be removed once zero
> > packages depend on it in Forky+1 or +2. Users who require Oracle MySQL
> > can continue to use third-party repositories, but our archive
> > packaging should honestly reflect what Debian actually ships and
> > supports in main.
> > 
> > Let me know if you see any concrete blockers for your packages.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > 
> > Otto
> 
> Can you confirm that no application will be compatible with one or the
> other? Like, will my applications stop working with mysql, somehow?
> 
> If not, I don't see the point.

Seeing as how their APIs are now divergent, if any application uses the part 
of the API that is not identical, it will have problems.  Over time, I would 
expect that the percentage of the API that diverges will increase.

-- 
Soren Stoutner
[email protected]
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